Russian software house secures $200m from Baring Vostok Capital

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You may not have heard of 1C.ru, but this leading Russian software company publishes 1C:Enterprise, the most popular ERP software for small and medium-sized businesses in Russia. With such a lock on a large market, that means 1C reported sales turnover of more than $600 million in 2010. And the sales are expected to increase by 20% in 2011.

So it’s not entirely unsurprising that the company has now received $200 million in return for a 9% stake from private equity firm Baring Vostok Capital Partners (BVCP) reports newspaper Vedomosti.

1C develops, distributes and publishes mass-market software and was founded in 1991. BVCP has previously invested in broadband telecom operator ER-Telecom but is better known for its stake in Yandex and OZON.ru.

The move should be seen as a wider move by VCs to invest in Russian software powerhouses. This January saw General Atlantic invest $200 million in security software vendor Kaspersky Lab.